Ruler and Wanderer
by pandasonic
Summary: Five years after the Courier took New Vegas for his own and became the Ruler, the not so Lone Wanderer and her band of misfits have made their way to the rapidly growing New Vegas Commonwealth, what will unfold between the most powerful and skilled individuals the wastes have ever seen?


The Ruler stood in his penthouse atop the tower that was the Lucky 38. He stared out upon his domain, his kingdom, his empire. Even if he had no memory of his painstaking work, he would so easily be able to tell the difference between the parts of his kingdom he had conquered, and the parts he had built. The conquered sections (New Vegas, Hoover Dam, Freeside, and Jacobstown) had a sense of history, but also a sense of tiredness as they were crumbling reminders of the failed world. He then looked out upon the places he had built from either nothing or almost nothing. The thriving city in what the locals still so wrongly referred to as the South Vegas Ruins had been oh so painfully constructed with the metal and other resources mined from Vault 3. The city of Goodsprings had been a slowly dying town when the Ruler was still the Courier, but with the blood and sweat of the caravaneers and with the strength and power of the Ruler's Securitron army, it had become a colossal walled city. The metal for the walls had been taken from that ridiculous statue outside the formerly NCR-occupied outpost, the other building materials had come out of that town Caesar's Legion butchered for their sins. He laughed once at the irony of it all. They slaughtered any example of sin, corruption, or decadence they found but modelled themselves after a civilization that was destroyed by it's sin, corruption, and decadence. And that's to say nothing of Caeser (or Kaiser, depending on which of the mad ruler's equally mad subordinates you asked) he was no better than his followers when you got down to it, just a bit more knowledgeable. The NCR was a little better, at least their soldiers genuinely cared (for the most part), but their leaders weren't very good at prioritizing. They tried to expand territory before securing what they had, fight the fiends and the legion at once, keep the caravans defended and the local towns secure, all at the same time. As Cass had put it, "No one's dick is that long, not even Long Dick Johnson". He smiled as his thoughts turned to Cass, she was hilarious, and quite clever...it was a shame she couldn't stay. He didn't blame her though, she was a wanderer at heart and she didn't feel right without the land under her feet always changing. He had at least managed to set her up with a courier job. And with how many former NCR citizens lived in New Vegas, there was always work here for her. The Ruler wanted to go with her, but this was his city now, and he needed to run it. Someone had to keep the families in line, someone had to visit the Boomers, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Great Khans, the Followers of the Apocalypse, and the fucking NCR to keep up trade and relations. The Khans and Followers could take ambassadors, but the Brotherhood did not trust any but the Ruler with knowledge of their location, and the Ruler did not trust any but himself to visit the Boomers, as that carried the potential of jeopardizing the goodwill he had fought so hard for. The NCRwere the worst of it. The Ruler handled the necessary dealings with the NCR very seriously, refusing to bring with him any less than 20 of his personally-designed Mk. 3 Securitrons, flanked by 10 Nightkin and 5 well-trained former NCR snipers under orders to neutralize any current-NCR soldiers who drew their weapons. He longed for the day when routing them power in exchange for weapons and food was no longer necessary. Unfortunately he still lacked the resources to make what was quickly becoming the commonwealth of New Vegas self-sufficient, and if his subjects were united in one thing, it was their desire to live independently. He was worried about something though. There were tales of a wandering group of one ghoul, a super mutant, a few former brotherhood of steel paladins, and a few former raiders with up-armored bots led by some vault jackass known as the "Wandering Wasteland Messiah". She was said to be incredibly charismatic and so worried the Ruler. The Ruler had encountered that sort of overzealous do-gooder before, and they rarely understood the concept of doing what was necessary. If this woman had come across the ruins of the Legion, scarred by nuclear missiles as they were, she was likely to assume the Ruler a warlord. She would start to plan a resistance. Doubtless there were members of his growing empire who thought they might profit from his demise. But killing her wasn't the answer here, rumors somehow traveled rather quickly in the wasteland, and word of her deeds had doubtless penetrated the outlying towns already. He would have to meet this "Wasteland Messiah". She was likely too powerful for even a few dozen Securitrons to handle, and if she could be made an ally, or rather, a subordinate, she would likely be very valuable to him. What to do? The Ruler's repurposed eyebots, copies of ED-E from the divide, had reported that she was only a few days from Goodsprings. If he was to ensure that she would not cause problems, he would have to talk to her. That shouldn't be a problem, he thought, he'd managed to talk Leggate Lanius out of fighting, just before he'd used a stealth boy to stick a C4 to the jackass's back and blow him to hell. "Soldier's honor" my ass, the Ruler mused, he'd never been a soldier and he'd never be one. Back then he'd been a survivor, and a damned good one, but nothing more. Now he was a Leader, a Ruler, an Emperor. He couldn't afford the luxuries of pride and honor. Sometimes, back when he was still a courier and poor as dirt, he couldn't even afford the luxury of basic decency. He'd eaten the flesh of dead fiends and raiders when he was starving. He'd killed sleeping opponents with knives. Sometimes, decency will cost you your life, and that would never be a price the Courier-turned-Ruler was willing to pay.


End file.
